


Ephemera

by mcfair_58



Category: Bonanza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27480136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcfair_58/pseuds/mcfair_58
Summary: Fragile.  Lasting only a short time.  Ben Cartwright teaches his young son that it is those things that fade the quickest that are worth the most.





	Ephemera

For Michael, gone but never forgotten

Ephemera

Ben Cartwright drew a breath and let it escape into the crisp autumn air, and then watched it waft away as a cloud. Ephemeral, that’s what Adam would have called it. Lasting for a very short time. Transitory. Fleeting.  
Short-lived.   
He’d come here on a mission but found, once he arrived, that he lacked the courage to pursue it. The events of the last month had struck too close to home. He’d thought he was past it; that he had moved through all the stages of grief to acceptance. It wasn’t true. He was still angry and, at times, could grow morose. The bottle of fine French brandy his boys had given him last Christmas should have lasted a year.  
It was almost empty.   
The older man reached out to brace himself. As his fingers encountered the worn wood, he felt that anger rear up inside of him anew. The Almighty created this world to be eternal. Man had sinned and brought death into it. Everything died. Plant, animal, man….  
Ben’s eyes went to the door of the cabin.  
Woman.   
God, he had loved her. Joseph’s mother, that was. Marie had been a fresh breeze that blew into his life, filling his sails and carrying him forward from the sorrow of Inger’s untimely and unnecessary death. Her beauty had rivaled that of a sunrise at sea. Sadly, that sun had set too soon. His only consolation was that Marie had left him a son.   
The young man inside the cabin had no such comfort.   
Ben lifted his hand to strike the rough surface of the door. He hesitated, once again considering his own state of mind after his last wife’s death. Perhaps he should leave the boy alone. Each man had to deal with loss in his own way. Some sailed on, others remained berthed where they were, and still others were forever lost at sea.   
That was his fear. That the boy would lose his way as he had for a time – and yet, he had come back to harbor. He’d had an anchor – three young sons who needed him. Joseph had an anchor too. Him, and his brothers. They needed him. The boy would know that.   
He’d come home on his own.   
Just as the rancher turned to leave, the door behind him opened. His youngest son stood there, looking exhausted and just a bit sheepish.   
“Hey, Pa.”  
Ben’s lips turned up. He couldn’t help it. He loved the boy so much.  
“Joseph.”  
“Sorry if I made you worry.”  
“You didn’t,” he replied. “I knew where you were.”  
His son ran a hand along the back of his neck, dislodging the unruly chestnut curls that had settled there. The boy favored him with a shy smile. “Yeah, I suppose you did.”  
Joseph looked so…pitiful. It was obvious he hadn’t slept the night before. His eyes were haunted, not by the nightmares he was prone to, but from looking into a chasm he could not cross.   
“Did you come to bring me home?” he asked.  
“No, son. I just came to see if you needed anything. You’re a man now. You’ll come home when it’s time.”  
His son nodded. “Thanks, Pa.”  
A silence fell between them then, profound as the immeasurable loss his son felt. Ben remained silent, uncertain of what more to say. When Joseph didn’t volunteer anything, he decided it was time to go.  
“I’ll just head home then,” he said. “There’s plenty of work to – “   
“Pa?”  
“Yes?”  
“Would you stay and…sit with me a minute?”  
Relief flooded through him. “Certainly, son.”  
The boy moved past him and took a seat on the low stoop that fronted the cabin they had prepared for him and his bride. He did the same. The silence continued for some minutes before Joseph spoke.  
“I don’t understand, Pa. Why did Laura have to die?”  
It was the question of a wounded child. But then, they were all children in a way.   
The older man cleared his throat. How to begin? With platitudes? ‘It was her time.’ ‘God took her because she was too good for this Earth.’ ‘She was sick, son. It was God’s mercy that ended her earthly life.’ ‘Her work here was done’. He’d heard them all each time he’d lost a wife and, each time, they had been far too little and, in a way, far too much.  
“I don’t know, son,” he said at last.  
The boy turned toward him, his deep brown brows peaking toward a dangling clump of those glorious curls. “You don’t know?”  
Joseph tone was that of a very young child who suddenly realizes their father is not God.   
Ben linked his hands between his knees. “I can’t pretend to know, Joseph. When I lost your mother – and Adam and Hoss’ – I asked the same questions. Why did she have to die? What possible purpose could there be in the loss of one so young, who had so much life and vitality and, frankly, so much to give?” He paused. “I grew very angry and then, lost my way as you know.”  
Joe dropped his head. “I was angry. Now, I’m just, well, sad.”  
“Well, then you are far more mature than this old man. I was angry for years!”  
Joseph smiled a bit at that. “Don’t look at the mirrors in the cabin, okay? Or what’s left of the dishes.”  
He circled his son’s shoulders with an arm. “Joseph, It’s all right to be angry. The Good Book says ‘Be angry and do not sin’. It doesn’t say don’t be angry.”   
“I’m sure the dishes will be happy to hear that,” his son muttered just before he shot to his feet. “It’s been a month!” Joe declared, his jaw tight. “Why can’t I get over it? I…should be able to. Laura is gone. She’s never coming back! Sitting in this old cabin wishing and waiting for her is….”  
“A balm to your soul.”  
Joe whirled to look at him. His son’s eyes were narrowed; his jaw thrust out in defiance.  
“No, Pa. It’s hell.”  
Ben thought a moment. “Joseph, do you know how lucky you are?”  
The boy blinked. “What?”  
He thought a moment. “Do you remember Mister Blanchard?”  
His son had to think a moment. “You mean the one who used to chase us out of his orchard with a shotgun?”  
He ignored that.   
“Mister Blanchard was married. Do you remember his wife?”  
The wheels were turning behind those green eyes. “Yeah. She was nice, but….”  
“But?”  
“She always looked kind of sad.”  
“That’s because her husband neglected her. Bob was a businessman. He found more excuses to be away than to be at home. Sarah spent most of her life alone.”  
Joseph was frowning. “What does this have to do with….?”  
“The Blanchards were married for forty years. I doubt that, in that time, they knew as much love as you and Laura did in the brief time you had together.” He rose to his feet and faced his son. “Do you know how blessed you are to have had someone who makes saying goodbye so hard?”  
His son was staring at him. He blinked and the tears began to fall.  
“I don’t know how to say ‘goodbye’, Pa. I just…we just said ‘hello’.”  
Suddenly the young man standing before him was not the one whom he had fretted over, chastised and loved for more than twenty years, but the little boy who stood beside his mother’s coffin with his cherubic face turned upward, begging him to go box God on the ears and tell him to let his mama come home.  
Ben placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You don’t have to say ‘goodbye’, Joseph, just fare thee well. You’ll see Laura again one day.” He touched the boy’s face. “And I’m here to tell you that it will be sooner than later. Time is a fleeting thing, son, like our lives in this world.”  
The tears were flowing now. “But Pa, how do I make it through each day?”  
“With grit and determination. With faith and a sure and certain hope for a better tomorrow. Laura would not want you to grieve forever, or waste your life, Joseph, because of her.”  
His son frowned. “She told me not to.”  
“I know.” His beloved Elizabeth, Inger and Marie had done the same. “Laura would want you to live and to honor who and what she was by the way you live.”  
“I…” Joseph sniffed. “I don’t know how, Pa.”   
“With smiles and laugher. Be the things you loved the most about her, son. In that way, Laura will never truly die.”   
For a moment the boy remained still. Then Joseph threw his arms about him and took hold. His own tears flowed as his son began to sob. They stood there, anchored in love and shared grief, as the sun set and the moon rose to shine its argent face on the land about them.   
He had no idea how long it was before the boy shuddered, sniffed, and pulled back.   
“Thanks, Pa.”  
Ben nodded. He considered all the things he could say, but opted for, “Well, it’s time I get home. The chores won’t do themselves.” He paused. “Will you be all right?”  
Joseph nodded. “I need…. My coat’s inside.” The boy struck a tear from his cheek and ran his hand under his nose. “Give me a minute, okay?”  
“Certainly. Take all the time you need.”  
Ben turned to face the trees as the door of the cabin opened and closed behind him. He lifted his face toward the sky, noting the myriad stars, and once again became astutely aware of how insignificant he was in the grand scheme of things. How many others had loved and lost? How many chosen not to live, but to mourn their fleeting lives away?   
How close had he come to being one of them?  
Yet God, in His mercy, had rescued him. As a loving father would, the Almighty had encouraged and cajoled and caressed – and even cuffed – him when necessary to bring him through to a good end. Loss and grief – and the pain of both – had made him the man he was. They would never understand it – him or his young son – but both were necessary.   
Be the things you loved the most about her.  
Ephemera. Short-lived. Fleeting.   
All too brief.  
But eternal.   
_____  
END


End file.
